


things you said when you were scared

by against_stars



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen, Protect Clan Lavellan quest chain, happy ending to the operation implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6683128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/against_stars/pseuds/against_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No single Inquisition victory had filled Lavellan with as much fierce pride as when Leliana's agent had reported that her clan and the alienage elves had been joined by humans and collectively destroyed the Venatori threat. But of course, that couldn't last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things you said when you were scared

**Author's Note:**

> posted a fic prompt meme on my tumblr and received the prompt "things you said when you were scared" from [kaikamahine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine). technically I was supposed to respond with a mini fic but I... don't seem capable of winding the fuck down, narratively-speaking.

 

Months ago, Saffron had asked to be updated on any information sent from Wycome with all haste, regardless of the hour or her location, and Leliana had promised her it would be done.

Now she's awake and thrumming with dread, staring aimlessly into the starry sky, roused because one of Leliana's runners had arrived in the small hours with letter from Keeper requesting aid, and true to her word Leliana had woken Saffron immediately to relay it.

That was an hour ago. Now there will be unknown days or weeks to wait before she can learn whether she has saved or doomed her family, and simmering terror makes a poor bedmate.

Swathed in a thick blanket and well-practiced silence, she eases open the many unnecessary doors between her bedroom and the main hall, with every intention of bundling up in the garden gazebo and praying until dawn. But as she passes the door to Solas' rotunda, she sees a faint flickering light in the gap beneath the wood, and without pausing to reconsider she turns and slips through the little hallway.

As much as Solas is content to let everyone believe he spends all of his time asleep in the Fade, it's rare for Saffron to see anyone else awake before him. Even in the field he's often one of the first out of his tent, eating quietly by the fire while the rest of them blearily roll up their packs. Nevertheless, it's astonishing that he's already awake this early — or perhaps, still awake this late, as she knows to happen sometimes — but she can be nothing but grateful at the thought of his company while she is nearly mindless with fear.

Perhaps he can distract her, or guide her through a peaceful dream, or even just bring her to sleep in black Fadeless quiet. If she can't get any rest until she learns the consequences of what she's done, she'll be useless in the field. Exhausted mages make thoughtless mistakes, and she cannot afford to slip.

The light is coming from the sputtering end of a nearly dead candle, and Solas himself is —

Asleep. Stretched out on his soft red couch, a roll of parchment half-unspooled over his belly, lashes casting shadows that dance over the sharp angles of his cheekbones. One hand is unseen beneath the blanket that covers him, and the other is dangling limply over the side of the couch, fingers curled loosely just inches from the cold floor.

Of course. It's nowhere near sunrise, there's been no drastic new development to press him into staying awake all night doing research, she has had no plans to travel and make rising early to pack and set out a necessity — even he would have no reason to be awake this early.

Any other moment, and Saffron would leave him to his dreams. She would smile at his relaxed sleeping face, then make a quiet retreat to the garden like she had intended, but — but.

But her helpless fear grips her more solidly than she has felt in a long time, its fingers like iron clamped around her spine. The garden is too cold when what she really wants is the familiar warmth of her aravel and her daughter's sleeping breath in her ear. And honestly, honestly, she doesn't want to be alone.

Her blanket shushes against the stone under her toes when she taps delicately across the rotunda to Solas' side, feather-light little sounds that don't even make his eyelids twitch. She quietly breathes the dying candle out of its misery as she passes Solas' desk, then sits down with her back against the part of the couch where his legs stretch out and pulls the blankets around her more tightly.

She's still as helpless here as she was in her room, still stuck with her racing heartbeat and the feeling like poison spreading through her bones and making her jaw ache. Walking a few hundred feet through the castle has done nothing for her clan. They will still live or die by her choice no matter where she sits and prays for her daughter, for her Keeper, for her friends.

At least it feels a little less overwhelming knowing someone else is alive beside her. It's not the same as being tucked three to an aravel and feeling hearts beat against hers while she sleeps, but she hasn't had that in a long time to start with.

As Solas would say, it's more than most.

Solas is even providing something of a distraction, too. His dangling hand keeps catching her eye, when her mind isn't running in circles providing her with every worst case scenario she's ever heard befall a clan. His circulation will be poor in that arm when he wakes up otherwise, and his fingers will be stiff with cold. She faintly itches with the urge to tuck it back up under his blanket.

After the quiet stretch of a few minutes, she gives up and does just that, his wrist cool under her palm.

"That was kind," he murmurs, everything but his lips completely motionless, "thank you," and Saffron doesn't entirely fly straight through the rookery in her shock, but it's a near enough thing.

"Sylvan's _teeth_ ," she gasps into her own fist, heart hammering, then, " _Abelas_ , _ir abelas_ , I did not mean to wake you —" and he blinks his eyes open, peers down at her with barely a tilt of his head. The reflection of his eyes in the dark is familiar and comforting. It always unnerves her that she cannot see humans' eyes at night.

" _Dar atisha_ , _vhenan_ ," he says softly. _Be at ease_. He deposits the scroll carefully to the floor, curling up onto one elbow to meet her eyes. "… Something is troubling you."

If she had wanted to hide it, she would not have come. Still, she is silent when she nods, suddenly not trusting herself to speak without sounding like the child she must look, knees folded under her chin as she drowns in the folds of the blanket.

Solas shifts further upward, every movement careful, swinging his legs down from the couch. Instead of gesturing for her to sit up with him, he slides down to the floor beside her, mirroring her position. "May I?" he asks, fingers plucking at a corner of the blanket.

"Please," Saffron murmurs, and shrugs some of the fabric over her shoulders towards him, so that they might be covered equally. He tucks himself in at her side, hips and shoulders against hers.

After several long moments of breathing between them, Saffron finally says, "I couldn't sleep. One of Leliana's agents brought a letter from my Keeper. About Wycome."

Solas knits his brow with concern. "The last missive stated that the people of the city thought your clan heroes for their actions. Is that... no longer the case?"

No single Inquisition victory had filled her with as much fierce pride as when Leliana's agent had reported that her clan and the alienage elves had been joined by humans and collectively destroyed the Venatori threat.

But of course, that couldn't last.

"The shem — human nobles didn't," Saffron clarifies heavily. "They fled the city, assumed it was a riot of knife-ears gone bad, and now they're telling everyone around the Free Marches that they need to put the elves down..." She clenches her fists, digs her knuckles into the gaps between the stones in the floor until it hurts. "My clan will not leave the city, they won't leave the people to suffer for what Lavellan has had a hand in, but the humans are gathering soldiers, and mean to wipe everyone out. I told Cullen to send our own troops, to fortify the city, but it will be so long before I know what has happened, and I —"

There's some blood on the stone, and for a moment she isn't sure where it came from, until Solas covers her raw knuckles with his own fingers and sends a cool flicker of healing glow through the skin. He doesn't release her hand when it fades.

Saffron can't look up from the knot of their fingers, his pale white against her dark golden, like she may detach and really fly through the rookery if not for the grounding. "I'm so afraid for them," she confesses hoarsely, the words like sand in her throat, scraping across her lips as if blown by the wind of the Wastes. "My friends, my family — my _daughter_ —"

Her little girl all grown and strong, messy plaits and serious eyes, her soft round cheeks made thorny and dark with Elgar'nan's pledge of vengeance. She's been too big to carry for years, and sometimes Saffron's hips still feel unbalanced without the weight of her. Saffron has told no one about her — as far as she can tell, even Leliana doesn't know — because she had hoped it would keep enemies from targeting her clan specifically if she could pretend no particular blood tie. And yet, it has done no good.

Solas unravels one of his hands from hers and slowly brings his arm around her shoulders, seeking wordless permission for every inch, and Saffron leans gratefully into the gesture. "Your clan is brave, and your city kin," he murmurs, "and your soldiers' march is swift and sure. Now you must have faith they'll be successful." If he has anything to say about her having a daughter, he is mercifully saving it for another time.

She nods, feeling drained and jittery. All things she's told herself. Still it helps, to hear it from his measured, reassuring voice.

Above them, the ravens coo softly, and when Saffron looks up she can just make out the shapes of the dangling cages silhouetted by the ever-lit candles at Leliana's shrine.

Leliana would pray with her for her clan, Saffron is sure, if she were to ask it of her. Saffron is not so closed-hearted that she would reject the support of someone else's god in something this precarious, and she thinks Leliana might be kinder than anyone else in Skyhold if Saffron asked her to join in a prayer to Mythal.

Ever since this "Herald" business started up she's been surrounded by almost nothing but humans, careful to walk a thin line between worlds, to not turn her back on her culture but still warned repeatedly about being "too Dalish" to be acceptable. The few other elves in the Inquisition have all been so quick to insist they are not her people. Everyone keeps making it very clear — her gods are her own.

They all have their reasons, of course, and she tries not to argue — it's hard sometimes with Sera, because Saffron's daughter is nearly her age and there are times she finds herself slipping into a mother's scolding or a First's lecture, but she does _try_. It's just that no one seems to notice how alone that makes her.

And it grates on her, unnerves her, to be so outnumbered by round ears and blank, doughy faces, small human eyes following her every move, dull human teeth clicking around human hymns they mouth in her wake as if she doesn't know what they did to their last prophet.

 _When they finally set me alight, will you gather my ashes from the pyre? Will you plant me a sapling in the Dales?_ she thinks, looking back down at Solas' hand around her own.

_They'll dock your ears when they tell my story, you know. Probably mine too. We shall be good, bare-faced Andrastians for history to feast on._

The lonely path indeed. She almost likes it more when Solas calls her _lethallan_ than when he calls her _vhenan_.

She doesn't feel any closer to sleep. But thinking of the birds, of Leliana, of praying alone for so long, reminds her of her first thought when she had left her room.

"Will you stay with me like this while I pray for my clan?" she asks. "I know you don't believe, I just. I would like not to be alone, if that's all right."

Solas presses a sudden, firm kiss against the fall of her white hair. "Of course you can, _vhenan_. I am sorry if I ever made you feel as if you could not."

It's not his fault. She's taken such care with her balancing act, she sometimes forgets who she doesn't have to be careful around. She bows her head.

"Actually, I..." Solas begins, his breath warm in her hair. "There was a temple, long in ruin, steeped strong with prayers to Mythal, and in the Fade I heard its faithful singing. I learned a hymn that mothers sang, in time of war and time of fear, to ask she grant protection for their children. If you like... I could teach it to you."

Something warm and unbearably fond cracks through the frozen ruin of her chest, like roots through stone, strong and alive and inexorable. Inevitable. Loving, and loved. There is fear still, but it doesn't have to control her.

Someday, if they survive this war, she will ask him to take her to these ruins, to show her how to see these things.

" _Ma serannas_ ," she sighs. Quietly, they sing together, until sunlight pours thinly through the windows of the rookery above.

**Author's Note:**

> [the original fic post on tumblr](http://against-stars.tumblr.com/post/143519654274/), if you're nice and into reblogging that sort of thing.
> 
> come hang out with me [on tumblr](against-stars.tumblr.com), it's mostly Dragon Age and me rambling or doodling my silly OCs.


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